Faculty

Joanna Austin's research is focused on fundamental problems in reactive, compressible flows across a broad range of applications, including hypervelocity flight and planetary entry, supersonic combustion and detonation, bubble dynamics, and explosive geological events.

Professor Chung's research focuses on distributed spacecraft systems, space autonomous systems, and aerospace robotics, and in particular, on the theory and application of complex nonlinear dynamics, control, estimation, guidance, and navigation of autonomous space and air vehicles.

John K. Northrop Professor of Aeronautics and Professor of Applied Physics

Professor Dimotakis focuses on experimental and computational research on turbulent mixing and chemical reactions in subsonic and supersonic free-shear flows; hypersonic propulsion; mixing and the geometry of surfaces and interfaces in turbulence; scalar dispersion in turbulent flows; and related areas.

Space-Related Research

Recent space-related research has been in collaboration with JPL on remote sensing of the atmosphere from space and on the technical feasibility of an asteroid-return mission. Other space-related research has been on high-speed/hypersonic endoatmospheric flight and propulsion, and parachute dynamics for entry, descent, and landing.

His Bio-mechanics and medical engineering research activities can be categorized in two areas: Fluid dynamics of physiological machines such as human circulatory system, and aquatic breathing/ propulsion; development of medical devices such as heart valves, cardiovascular health monitoring and drug delivery systems.

Professor Kochmann's research combines theoretical, computational, and experimental solid mechanics to study the link between microstructure and macroscopic properties of a variety of engineering materials. One of his areas of research is the simulation of microstructures in crystalline solids (such as metals). In contrast to many current phenomenological theories, Professor Kochmann's research aims at physics-based and hence predictive multiscale models applicable to polycrystal plasticity and twinning. Another of his research areas is the design of novel composite materials with tunable performance, for instance, materials whose stiffness and damping can be tuned by orders of magnitude, reaching viscoelastic stiffness greater than that of a diamond. He designs these materials using a careful composite architecture and utilizing phases with so-called negative-stiffness mechanisms.

Professor McKeon explores new ways to manipulate or control the boundary layer—the thin layer between a material and flowing air—to improve flow characteristics, such as a reduction of drag, noise, and structural loading or expansion of vehicle performance envelopes during travel. The unifying theme to her work is an experimental and theoretical approach at the intersection of fluid mechanics, control, and materials science to investigate fundamental flow questions, address efficiency and performance challenges in aerospace vehicle design, and respond to the energy conservation imperative in novel and efficient ways.

Fletcher Jones Professor of Aeronautics and Applied and Computational Mathematics

Professor Meiron's research focuses on computation and modelling of basic fluid mechanical phenomena. Particular interests include shock driven flow instabilities, turbulence, simulation approaches for high strain rate solid mechanics. He is also interested on development of adaptive numeriocal methods for such flows that are suitable for high performance computation.

Several active research areas at present; (1) development of large-eddy simulation for high-Reynolds number wall-bounded turbulent flow, particularly bluff-body flows, (2) shock-driven flows in both fluids and solids, (3) development of new numerical methods for the solution of the Boltzman equation.

Joe Shepherd's research in aerospace focuses on the high speed flight and aviation safety. His high speed flow research group uses the numerical simulation, theory and experiments in the T5 hypervelocity reflected shock tunnel and the Ludweig tube to study instabilities of boundary layers and transition to turbulence in supersonic and hypersonic flows. His explosion dynamics research group uses theory, numerical simulations and experiments in shock tubes, detonation tubes, flow reactors, combustion vessels to study ignition, flame and detonation propagation in a a wide range of fuel-oxidizer systems relevant to industrial hazards.